An upcoming IMechE training course, Explosion Safety & Explosible Atmosphere (Atex) Compliance, will provide an understanding of explosion risks, prevention strategies and regulatory compliance. Next running in London on 30 October, the basic principles course will equip attendees with the skills needed to make informed decisions regarding explosive atmospheres.
The course will be taught by explosion safety and Atex regulation expert Jonathan Hichens. Here, he gives five tips to start minimising explosion risks – sign up for the course for the comprehensive details.
Keep your training up to date
If you work in this industry, training is a mandatory requirement – your company will fail an audit if your staff aren’t trained. But the main point is that explosion safety is incredibly important. A lot of UK manufacturers are making equipment that goes into these explosive atmospheres. It's really important that they have a solid focus on safety.
One thing that is common in the industry – and it’s something we’re trying to combat – is most organisations have maybe one person who understands it. Manufacturers just want to make and sell stuff – but if your equipment is not safe, or some of your staff aren’t doing things the way they need to, it’s going to lead to an explosion and people are going to die, as happens far too regularly. It doesn’t even make the news sometimes.
Industrial explosions happen, so it's really important that your staff – design engineers, test engineers, people working in the factory, people working in quality assurance, even the sales and marketing people – should really understand the whole picture of why you’ve got to do these things.
It’s not simple, but at the end of the day these things are there for a reason. It’s about a culture of safety, and making sure that people understand the responsibility that they have.
Learn the principles of explosion safety
There are some main principles of explosion safety. If you can eliminate the hazard, for example, that's obviously the safest thing. If you can get the equipment out of the hazardous area, that should be your first port of call. After that, you can try and replace the hazard – but that’s not always easy.
Engineering controls – designing your equipment not to spark, or including gas-proof housings – are less effective than not having a hazard, but that’s how the Ex manufacturing industry works, you find different levels of risk. Mitigation is the third main principle.
Learn how to read markings
A big chunk of the training goes into this, because Ex markings can be quite complicated. I break it down into the six sections, with each one providing a lot of information about a product. The different sections tell you what gas group it is, what the temperature class is, what zone it can be used it. In order to understand Ex equipment, you’ve got to understand these markings.
Get to know the different types of protection
There's lots of different ways for a piece of equipment to become safe, that's how it's designed. Those types of protection include non-sparking, flameproof or low-current protection.
There’s a bunch of types of protection, and if you’re working with this equipment it’s really essential to understand all of them. If you’re designing a product, it has to follow one of these, so it’s really important that people understand it.
Understand the dust and gas groups
Everything is on a scale of risk, and all the gases and dust are put into groups. The highest risk group is hydrogen, it just loves to explode. It needs a tiny little spark and has a massive range.
All of the other gases are categorised as well, with many levels of risk. As well as which zone you're putting equipment into, it depends what the gas is, and that informs the design of the equipment. All of these things interlink.
Explosion Safety & Explosible Atmosphere (Atex) Compliance takes place in London on 30 October. Visit the IMechE training page for information about other available courses.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.